CATHY WARNER
  • Home
  • My Books
  • Annas Bay Books
  • Hood Canal Beauty
  • About
  • Selected Writing
  • Photo Haikus
  • Blog
  • Services
  • Classes & Events

Photography Tips for Surviving the Summer of COVID-19

9/25/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture

  1. Track the comet NEOWISE or the Milky Way. Use an app, such as PhotoPills, if you like.
  2. Sit outside after civil twilight has ended.
  3. Wear shorts, flip-flops and a short-sleeved T-shirt as the unusual heat lingers and licks your skin.
  4. Set up your tripod on the deck overlooking the water and winking lights across the bay.
  5. Turn on your camera, choosing manual mode and manual focus.
  6. Look through the viewfinder and turn the focus knob until the wavering lights blink like pointed Christmas tree baubles.
  7. Train your lens above the Olympic Mountains on the horizon.
  8. Set your lens as wide as possible, the F-stop as low as possible, and the ISO low, too.
  9. Experiment with exposure time: 10, 15, 20, 30, 45 seconds.
  10. Experiment with ISO: 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400.
  11. Sit in the silence of the camera at work, exposing for you what is beyond the ability of your naked eye to comprehend but is present none-the-less.
  12. Listen to the seals growl on the floating platform just offshore, and the rhythmic shirring of tires on asphalt as the occasional car travels down the road.
  13. Smell the brine of exposed oysters, beached eel grass, the whiff of the vacationers’ campfire on the other side of the overgrown lot next door.
  14. Sit and snap the shutter and stare and feel the infinitesimal scale of your existence amid the constellations, the galaxy, and the surprise interstellar visitor whose tail of fire, ice, and space dust streaks through consciousness as in this moment, the ego is blissfully napping and the soul is reunited with existential acceptance and unconditional love.
  15. It doesn’t matter that the images you expose can never reveal the depth of the truth that washes over you. It is the stillness and surety of belonging you most need to capture and store in the reservoir of your heart.
  16. The camera is simply a tool, like the breath in yoga, connecting you to the both/and inherent in everything.
  17. In 30 minutes, or 45, or 60, go back inside
  18. Load the memory card into your computer.
  19. Import your files.
  20. Click through them cropping, straightening, adjusting the light and shadows.
  21. Hope for a single image out of hundreds to carry from this night into the morning, a gift you might offer others cloistered in apartments while a virus runs amok. A tiny JPG flickering in a Facebook feed—a morsel of divine nourishment given to you and through you for the good of the world.
Picture
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    I began blogging about "This or Something Better" in 2011 when my husband and I were discerning what came next in our lives, which turned out to be relocating to Puget Sound from our Native California. My older posts can be found here.

    Categories

    All
    Memoir
    Photography
    Poetry
    Sermons
    Wildlife
    Writing

    Archives

    March 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    February 2022
    November 2021
    July 2021
    May 2021
    March 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    September 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016

    Newsletters


    • Are We There Yet? 03/23
    • Let Me Change Your Life 12/22
    • Astronomical Wonders 09/22 
    • Finding Sustenance in this Season 03/22
    • Happy Holidays 12/21
    • Treats Not Tricks 10/21
    • Here in the Ember Months 09/21
    • Sizzling Summer Sights & Sounds 07/21
    • Memorial Day Update 05/21
    • Holy Week 03/21
    • March Madness 03/21
    • Solstice Greetings 12/20
    • The Gratitude Issue 11/20
    • Autumn Is Upon Us 09/20
    • Summer Sightings 07/20
    • What to do with this pain 05/20
    • New Anthology 05/20
    • Easter Edition 04/20
    • Sequestered Sunday 03/20
    • Keep Calm & Cloister On 03/20
    • February Feasting 02/20
    • Cathy's Autumn Update 11/19
    • Settle in to September 09/19
    • Coming Up! 08/19
    • A New Memoir in the Family 07/19
    • California Here I Come 06/19
    • Sky's the Limit 04/19
    • Spring Update 03/19
    • New Book 02/19
    • Fabulous February Literary Update 02/19
    • New Year News Letter 01/19
    • Winter Writing Update 12/18 

  • Home
  • My Books
  • Annas Bay Books
  • Hood Canal Beauty
  • About
  • Selected Writing
  • Photo Haikus
  • Blog
  • Services
  • Classes & Events